


All Is Fair In Kitchen War

by captaintinymite (augopher)



Series: Lyric Lines as Dialogue [2]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Celebrity, Chef Coach, Chef Stiles, Cooking Show, M/M, Married Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski, Rivalry, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-27
Updated: 2015-07-27
Packaged: 2018-04-11 14:06:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4438361
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/augopher/pseuds/captaintinymite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles is a celebrity chef and co-host of popular cooking show with Coach called ‘Skillet It In the Kitchen with Stiles and Bobby’. The only catch? They hate each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All Is Fair In Kitchen War

**Author's Note:**

> Based on prompt from [biglittlethingslove](www.biglittlethingslove.tumblr.com) for my Lyrics as Dialogue prompt event "2 + celebrity!au, please? :) “I messed up again when I tried”
> 
> Lyric comes from HURT's "Falls Apart," which did not inspire anything about this fic.

The sound of grumbling from the front door caught Derek’s attention from where he sat on the sofa, eyeballs deep in grading final term papers. “How was your day?” he asked, taking off his glasses to rub his eyes.

“Oh it was fucking fantastic!”

Derek sighed, “Do I detect a hint of sarcasm?” He stood up and made his way towards the kitchen where he heard his husband rummaging around in the cabinets.

“Oh,” Stiles scoffed, “you think? It’s practically oozing from my follicles.”

Derek took one step into the room and froze, opening and closing his mouth several times. He was at a loss for words. “Um….wha…” He cocked his head to the side and squinted. If he tried hard, he could still see them. “Stiles.”

“Yes,” he muttered as he grabbed the bottle of Scotch from the cabinet and poured a shot into a snifter followed by a splash of filtered water from the fridge.

“Bad day?”

“What gave it away?” Stiles took a sip from his glass. “Go ahead and ask. I can practically hear you arguing with yourself whether or not to say anything.”

“Speaking of follicles, what happened to your eyebrows?”

He sighed. “Welp, I messed up again when I tried to smooth things over with that asshole, and just as I was lighting my Crêpe Suzette, he decided to dump the rest of the bottle of Grand Marnier into the pan! And WHOOSH! Good-bye eyebrows. That’s it; I can’t work with that man anymore!”

Derek nodded, trying desperately not to laugh at the way Stiles looked sans brows. “Kind of hard to leave the show when it’s called ‘Skillet It In the Kitchen with-”

“Stiles and Bobby? Yes, I’m aware. Thank you, Derek. Erica is going to kill me tomorrow when she sees my face.”

Derek walked over and kissed his cheek. “At least it just burned off your eyebrows and not your skin.”

“Yeah, well, I look like Seamus Finnegan.” Stiles finished his drink with a satisfied smack of his lips. “Is Laura sleeping?”

“Yeah, she fell asleep while I was grading papers. She should be getting up though; she’s got to be getting hungry.”

Stiles nodded and walked to Laura’s bedroom where his ‘Where’s my little Princess?’ carried down the hall.

Laura’s wailing, presumably at the sight of Stiles and his missing eyebrows, echoed even louder.

 

*****

 

Stiles had just tied the strings on his apron when his least favorite voice in the world cut the blessed silence like a santoku.

“Get out of my kitchen, you little miscreant!”

“S’not your kitchen, Finstock.” He began prepping the base for the soufflé they would be making for their main dish. “Besides, I’m not the one who doesn’t quite understand the nuances on how to flambé something.”

“Don’t tell me how to cook.”

“Oh go suck a bouillon cube!”

“Don’t look at me in that tone of voice. I’ve been a chef for longer than you’ve been alive. If I were four years younger, I’d punch you.”

“I’d like to see you try.”

Their director, Boyd, took his usual seat in between the two cameras. “You’re on in ten, gentlemen.”

“I am surprisingly strong. Profoundly spry for a man of my age.”

Stiles snagged a grape off the bunch in the fruit bowl atop the counter and flicked it at Finstock’s face. “Keep telling yourself that, Cupcake.”

They opened their broadcast with their usual banter, which in their case was trading backhanded compliments and thinly veiled barbs.

“When we come back from commercials, Bobby and I will show you how to make that Everest of the kitchen, the dreaded soufflé. With a little practice and a little patience, you can mix one up and impress your boss, your friends, even your mother. Who doesn’t love mom’s approval of their cooking? I know I sure do.” Stiles smiled into the camera waiting for the cut.

“And how’s that approval working for you, Stilinski?”

The remarked earned Finstock a death glare and an ice cube whipped at the back of his head. “How’s that anger management working for you?” He pulled the mix he’d made before the show started out of the fridge.

“If I were still coaching lacrosse, I’d make you run suicides all day long.”

“Ha!”

“Still have my whistle though.”

“Cool your jets, Guys,” Boyd said. “We’re back in five, four, three, two, one.”

“Welcome back. While we were on break, Bobby grated a cup of Gruyère cheese. If you don’t have that, a good Emmenthaler Swiss will do in a pinch. While he was busy with that, I melted some butter and greased the inside of our dish. We are using a six cup soufflé dish for this recipe. Then I coated the dish with grated parmesan. Now, you’ll-”

“While my co-host was hogging the camera, I took care of making the roux. If you are a regular viewer, you are well aware of how to make one of those.” Finstock tilted the saucepan towards the camera. “Oooh, look at that beautiful color. Do not, I repeat, do not let this brown.”

Stiles rolled his eyes. “Histrionic bastard,” he grumbled under his breath.

“Oh I’m sorry, did you have something to say?” He dumped a small bowl of spices into the pan, and then added egg yolks.

“Why yes, yes I did, Bobby. In this bowl I have five egg whites. You will want to beat them until they are stiff, but not dry”

“Yes, we wouldn’t want you to confuse your egg whites with Bilinski’s humor.”

“It’s Stilinski, Bobby, with an ‘S’. You know, the letter that comes after ‘r’ and before ‘t,’ starts lovely words like ‘shrimp’ and ‘spaghetti’.” He smiled at the camera again. “Now, fold a quarter of your egg whites into lukewarm or room temperature soufflé base. We are using a base we made earlier. Next, fold in remaining whites in 2 additions while gradually sprinkling in Gruyère cheese. When that’s done you’ll want to transfer batter to prepared dish.” Stiles crossed to the oven where they had a soufflé already baking. “The most important step in making a soufflé is not to open the oven in the first twenty-” He watched, frozen as Finstock opened the oven.

“Oh, isn’t that horrible? Your soufflé collapsed. That’s tragic, Bilinski. Just tragic. But look here, Viewers. I have this beautiful creation just pulled from the oven. Mmmm. It’s beautiful. At least one of us can make these perfectly.”

Stiles tried not to let Finstock rattle him. “And that, everyone is why you don’t want to-” He was cut off by his inconsiderate co-star blowing into his whistle. “What in the h-” And again with the whistle. “Would you-” Again. “I’m try-”

Finstock cackled at Stiles’ growing frustration. “If you have a nuisance in your kitchen the way I do, I find the best way to train them is to use a whistle. Worked great for my dog”

“You are so unpro-” Again. That was the last straw for Stiles, who, without looking, cracked open the fridge just slightly, and reached for one of the bottles in the door. He pulled it out and squirted it in Finstock’s face, delighting in the sight of his co-star’s mug covered in French’s yellow mustard.

Boyd pinched the bridge of his nose and sent them to commercial, groaning as he did so.

 

*****

 

“Stiles, don’t you think you’re overreacting?” Derek sighed in exasperation at his husband’s ranting. He grabbed the rag off the table to wipe Laura’s chin. “No, Sweetie, we are supposed to eat our dinner, not wear it.” When she spit out another spoonful of food he mentally added mangoes to the list of foods she clearly did not care for. He stood up and took a container of applesauce from the fridge.

“Derek, he wrecked my soufflé on national television…on purpose! He’s a nightmare.” Stiles threw up his hands in frustration.

“Come on,” he said scraping Laura’s chin with the spoon, “it’s yummy, yummy applesauce. Well, you did squirt mustard in his face. I’d say you got back at him.”

“It could have been worse.”

Derek pinched the bridge of his nose. “How, Stiles? How could it have been worse?”

Stiles smirked, “I was reaching for the Sriracha.”

 

*****

 

“Now,  before we get started on the plum and red wine reduction for our torte, we will take a few calls.” Stiles glanced over at the teleprompter, giving it a quick read. “Hi there, Miranda from Fort Worth, you’re on the air.”

“‘Hi. I just want to say, I love your show. I watch it with my daughter everyday.”

“Aww, thanks, Miranda.”

“And we just love your ranch dressing recipe. I was wondering if you had suggestions for making it healthier.”

“Use less,” Finstock chuckled.

“Very funny, Bobby. You could use less, but if you love salad dressing or just are one of those people who puts ranch on everything–and let’s be honest, ranch on french fries is amazing–you can swap the mayo for plain greek yogurt and a bit of buttermilk. You’ll want to use non-fat yogurt.”

“Thank you so much.”

“You’re welcome, Miranda.”

“Next caller,” Finstock said. “Janet from Chippewa Falls, how are you?”

“Excellent, thank you.”

“Where’s Chippewa Falls?”

“Wisconsin.”

“Ah well, Janet from Wisconsin, how can we help you?” Finstock tossed a peanut in the air and caught it in his mouth.

“My question is for Stiles.”

“Yes, go ahead.”

“Myself and the ladies in my book club are huge fans, and we just think you are about as adorable as they come.”

Stiles’ cheeks flushed. “Aww, Janet, you’re making me blush.”

“And if you’re ever up in my neck of the woods, I would love to take you out for dinner.”

Finstock rolled his eyes. “Oh for crying out loud.”

“That’s really sweet, but I’m married. I think that might not go over well.”

Janet laughed through the phone line. “Well your wife is a very lucky lady.”

Stiles gave a nervous chuckle. “Well yes, but I’m-”

“Enough flirting there, Romeo. Thanks for your call, Janet.” When the call disconnected, he turned to his co-host. “We all know you’re the lucky one in the relationship. Personally, I’d rather shoot myself than be married to you.”

“Says the guy who’s terminally single.”

Finstock tossed a handful of flour at Stiles, covering his face in white. “Not so adorable now are you?”

Stiles grabbed a couple eggs and cracked them over Finstock’s head.

 

*****

 

“This is going to be a disaster,” Stiles groaned as they walked from their car to the studio where ‘Skillet It In the Kitchen’ was filmed. From where he held her on his hip, Laura wrapped her little hand in his shirt.

“Yeah, you’re probably right.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

“Well, Stiles, I think you abandoned any hope of ever getting along with Finstock when you shook up a can of Coke and sprayed it all over him last week.”

Stiles’ frustrated groan echoed through the parking garage. “The man took a full piping bag and sprayed all of  _it_  down my shirt!”

“Welllll……”

“It was royal icing! It bonded with my chest hair!”

“Okay. You have a point there. Fitting retaliation.”

He gave Derek’s hand a light squeeze. “I knew you’d eventually see the light.”

“So, it’s Friends and Family day. That’s it?”

“Well, you can be part of the show if you want, but there is a seating area for guests if you don’t want to be on camera. Erica’s sister and Allison–she’s Isaac’s girlfriend…you know, the cameraman–they’ll be sitting there. I’m hoping it’s actually a ‘Hooray, Finstock’s leaving the show’ party.”

Inside, the studio had been decked out with the finest decorations. Bottles of champagne sat in ice buckets and platters of crudites and hors d'oeuvres covered the counters. Families of staff members mingled about in the kitchen.

“Awwww, look at this sweet little peanut,” Erica cooed when she saw Laura. “Can I?”

“If she’ll let you.” Stiles hand her to Erica, where the infant thankfully did not start wailing.

“Who’s a pretty baby? Who’s a pretty baby?” Erica studied Laura’s face for a moment. “Surrogate?”

“Yeah.”

“Let’s hope she didn’t inherit your short temper, Stiles.”

Derek laughed. “Well, it’s not like my sister’s is any better.

Stiles made the rounds with his family, introducing them to his coworkers, sighing in relief that Finstock had decided not to grace the set with his presence yet. All joy was shattered about ten minutes later when, speak of the devil…

“Stilinski! I see you’ve brought the nanny. What happened to the missus? She decide-”

“There is no missus, Bobby. There’s Derek,” he pointed to his husband.

“Oh,” Finstock said, and then paused. “Ohhhhh.”

Stiles looked at the guy standing next to Finstock. “And you brought the… pool boy?”

“Not exactly. This is Greenberg, he’s my-”

“Boyfriend?”

“Manager.”

Stiles swore his cackling could be heard three soundstages over. “That is just too rich.” He wiped the tears of mirth from his eyes.

Finstock put himself in Stiles’ space, and they devolved into a hostile but hushed confrontation. “If I could assign Michelin Stars for all the ways you wreck my blood pressure, I would.”

“Thanks, Bobby. That really means a lot.”

He jabbed a finger into Stiles’ chest. “Don’t make me get out the whistle.”

“Don’t make me pull out my mace.”

“I can’t wait till they cancel this show. So I can move onto greener pastures with less stress.”

“You are a nightmare,” Stiles pulled out his stool and sat down in his usual spot, where unfortunately Finstock had a space right next to him.

“And you’re no ray of sunshine, Bilinski.”

Just as Boyd counted them down to ‘on air,’ their producer, Lydia took center stage.

“Thank you for joining us today on our Friends and Family special. I’m Lydia Martin, lead producer for ‘Skillet It in the Kitchen’. Thanks to all your letters, phone calls, and mentions on social media saying how much you love the witty banter and the barbs our hosts trade, how you enjoy their sibling rivalry like bond, I am proud to announce that we have been renewed for another three seasons! Let’s give Stiles and Bobby a round of applause.”

In an unscripted but perfectly coordinated moment of synchronicity, both Stiles and Finstock’s heads hit the counter at the exact same time.

“I hate you so much,” Finstock hissed through clenched teeth.

Stiles turned his face towards his co-star. “Right.back.at.you.”

It was going to be a long three seasons. 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Come visit me on [tumblr](www.captaintinymite.tumblr.com)


End file.
